by J. D. Robb
“Does He have a lot of them? I mean, you’d think He’d just, what, smite them down Himself instead of enlisting you to do the dirty work.”
There was a pause, a long one, in which only the dirge played through. “I have to expect you to be flippant.” The voice was harder now, and edgier. Temper barely suppressed. “As one of the godless, how could you understand divine retribution? I’ll put this on your level. A riddle. Do you enjoy riddles, Lieutenant Dallas?”
“No.” She slid her gaze toward Peabody, got a quick, frustrated head shake. “But I bet you do.”
“They relax the mind and soothe the spirit. The name of this little riddle is Revenge. You’ll find the first son of the old sod in the lap of luxury, atop his silver tower where the river runs dark below and water falls from a great height. He begged for his life, and then for his death. Never repenting his great sin, he is already damned.”
“Why did you kill him?”
“Because this is the task I was born for,”
“God told you that you were born to kill?” Eve pushed for trace again, fought with frustration. “How’d He let you know? Did He call you up on your ’link, send a fax? Maybe He met you in a bar?”
“You won’t doubt me.” The sound of breathing grew louder, strained, shaky. “You think because you’re a woman in a position of authority that I’m less? You won’t doubt me for much longer. I contacted you, Lieutenant. Remember this is in my charge. Woman may guide and comfort man, but man was created to protect, defend, to avenge.”
“God tell you that too? I guess that proves He’s a man after all. Mostly ego.”
“You’ll tremble before Him, before me.”
“Yeah, right.” Hoping his video was clear, Eve examined her nails. “I’m already shaking.”
“My work is holy. It is terrible and divine. From Proverbs, Lieutenant, twenty-eight seventeen: ‘If a man is burdened with the blood of another, let him be a fugitive until death; let no one help him.’ This one’s days as a fugitive are done—and no one helped him.”
“If you killed him, what does that make you?”
“The wrath of God. You have twenty-four hours to prove you’re worthy. Don’t disappoint me.”
“I won’t disappoint you, asshole,” Eve muttered as the transmission ended. “Anything, Peabody?”
“Nothing. He jammed the tracers good and proper. They can’t give us so much as on or off planet.”
“He’s on planet,” she muttered and sat. “He wants to be close enough to watch.”
“Could be a crank.”
“I don’t think so. A fanatic, but not a crank. Computer, run buildings, residential and commercial with the word luxury, in New York City, with view of the East River or the Hudson.” She tapped her fingers. “I hate puzzle games.”
“I kind of like them.” Brows knit, Peabody leaned over Eve’s shoulder as the computer went to work.
Luxury Arms
Sterling Luxury
Luxury Place
Luxury Towers
Eve pounced. “Access visual of Luxury Towers, on screen.”
Working . . .
The image popped, a towering spear of silver with a glint of sunlight off the steel and shimmering on the Hudson at its base. On the far west wide, a stylish waterfall tumbled down a complex arrangement of tubes and channels.
“Gotcha.”
“Can’t be that easy,” Peabody objected.
“He wanted it easy.” Because, Eve thought, someone was already dead. “He wants to play and he wants to preen. Can’t do either until we’re in it. Computer, access name of residents on the top floor of the Luxury Towers.”
Working . . . Penthouse is owned by The Brennen Group and is New York base for Thomas X. Brennen of Dublin, Ireland, age forty-two, married, three children, president and CEO of The Brennen Group, an entertainment and communications agency.
“Let’s check it out, Peabody. We’ll notify Dispatch on the way.”
“Request backup?”
“We’ll get the lay of the land first.” Eve adjusted the strap on her weapon harness and shrugged into her jacket.
The traffic was just as bad as she’d suspected, bumping and grinding over wet streets, buzzing overhead like disoriented bees. Glide-carts huddled under wide umbrellas and did no business she could see. Steam rolled up out of their grills, obscuring vision and stinking up the air.
“Get the operator to access Brennen’s home number, Peabody. If it’s a hoax and he’s alive, it’d be nice to keep it that way.”
“On it,” Peabody said and pulled out her ’link.
Annoyed with the traffic delays, Eve sounded her siren. She’d have had the same response if she’d leaned out the window and shouted. Cars remained packed together like lovers, giving not an inch.
“No answer,” Peabody told her. “Voice-mail announcement says he’s away for two weeks beginning today.”
“Let’s hope he’s bellied up to a pub in Dublin.” She scanned the traffic again, gauged her options. “I have to do it.”
“Ah, Lieutenant, not in this vehicle.”
Then Peabody, the stalwart cop, gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut in terror as Eve stabbed the vertical lift. The car shuddered, creaked, and lifted six inches off the ground. Hit it again with a bone-shuddering thud.
“Goddamn piece of dog shit.” Eve used her fist this time, punching the control hard enough to bruise her knuckles. They did a shaky lift, wobbled, then streamed forward as Eve jabbed the accelerator. She nipped the edge of an umbrella, causing the glide-cart hawker to squeal in fury and hotfoot in pursuit for a half a block.
“The damn hawker nearly caught the bumper.” More amazed than angry now, Eve shook her head. “A guy in air boots nearly outran a cop ride. What’s the world coming to, Peabody?”
Eyes stubbornly shut, Peabody didn’t move a muscle. “I’m sorry, sir, you’re interrupting my praying.”
Eve kept the sirens on, delivering them to the front entrance of the Luxury Towers. The descent was rough enough to click her teeth together, but she missed the glossy fender of an XRII airstream convertible by at least an inch.
The doorman was across the sidewalk like a silver bullet, his face a combination of insult and horror as he wrenched open the door of her industrial beige city clunker.
“Madam, you cannot park this . . . thing here.”
Eve flicked off the siren, flipped out her badge. “Oh yeah, I can.”
His mouth only stiffened further as he scanned her ID. “If you would please pull into the garage.”
Maybe it was because he reminded her of Summerset, the butler who had Roarke’s affection and loyalty and her disdain, but she pushed her face into his, eyes glittering. “It stays where I put it, pal. And unless you want me to tell my aide to write you up for obstructing an officer, you’ll buzz me inside and up to Thomas Brennen’s penthouse.”
He sucked air through his nose. “That is quite impossible. Mr. Brennen is away.”
“Peabody, get this . . . citizen’s name and ID number and arrange to have him transported to Cop Central for booking.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can’t arrest me.” His shiny black boots did a quick dance on the sidewalk. “I’m doing my job.”
“You’re interfering with mine, and guess whose job the judge is going to think is more important?”
Eve watched the way his mouth worked before it settled in a thin, disapproving line. Oh yeah, she thought, he was Summerset to a tee, even though he was twenty pounds heavier and three inches shorter than the bane of her existence.
“Very well, but you can be sure I will contact the chief of police and security about your conduct.” He studied her badge again. “Lieutenant.”
“Feel free.” With a signal to Peabody, she followed the doorman’s stiff back to the entrance, where he activated his droid backup to man the post.
Inside the shining silver doors, the lobby of the Luxury Towers was a tropical garden
with towering palms, flowing hibiscus and twittering birds. A large pool surrounded a splashing fountain in the shape of a generously curved woman, naked to the waist and holding a golden fish.
The doorman keyed in a code at a glass tube, silently gestured Eve and Peabody inside. Unhappy with the transport, Eve stayed rooted to the center while Peabody all but pressed her nose against the glass on the ascent.
Sixty-two floors later, the tube opened into a smaller garden lobby, no less abundant. The doorman paused by a security screen outside double arched doors of highly polished steel.
“Doorman Strobie, escorting Lieutenant Dallas of the NYPSD and aide.”
“Mr. Brennen is not in residence at this time,” came the response in a soothing voice musical in its Irish lilt.
Eve merely elbowed Strobie aside. “This is a police emergency.” She lifted her badge to the electronic eye for verification. “Entrance is imperative.”
“One moment, Lieutenant.” There was a quiet hum as her face and ID were scanned, then a discreet click of locks. “Entrance permitted, please be aware that this residence is protected by SCAN-EYE.”
“Recorder on, Peabody. Back off, Strobie.” Eve put one hand on the door, the other on her weapon, and shouldered it open.
The smell struck her first, and made her swear. She’d smelled violent death too many times to mistake it.
Blood painted the blue silk walls of the living area, a grisly, incomprehensible graffiti. She saw the first piece of Thomas X. Brennen on the cloud-soft carpet. His hand lay palm up, fingers curled toward her as if to beckon or to plead. It had been severed at the wrist.
She heard Strobie gag behind her, heard him stumble back into the lobby and the fresh floral air. She stepped into the stench. She drew her weapon now, sweeping with it as she covered the room. Her instincts told her what had been done there was over, and whoever had done it was safely away, but she stuck close to procedure, making her way slowly over the carpet, avoiding the gore when she could.
“If Strobie’s finished vomiting, ask him the way to the master bedroom.”
“Down the hall to the left,” Peabody said a moment later. “But he’s still heaving out there.”
“Find him a bucket, then secure the elevator and this door.”
Eve started down the hall. The smell grew riper, thicker. She began to breathe through her teeth. The door to the bedroom wasn’t secure. Through the crack came a slash of bright artificial light and the majestic sounds of Mozart.
What was left of Brennen was stretched out on a lake-sized bed with a stylish mirrored canopy. One arm had been chained with silver links to the bedpost. Eve imagined they would find his feet somewhere in the spacious apartment.
Undoubtedly the walls were well soundproofed, but surely the man had screamed long and loud before he died. How long had it taken, she wondered as she studied the body. How much pain could a man stand before the brain turned off and the body gave out?
Thomas Brennen would know the answer, to the second.
He’d been stripped naked, his hand and both his feet amputated. The one eye he had left stared in blind horror at the mirrored reflection of his own mutilated form. He’d been disemboweled.
“Sweet Jesus Christ,” Peabody whispered from the doorway. “Holy Mother of God.”
“I need the field kit. We’ll seal up, call this in. Find out where his family is. Call this in through EDD, Feeney if he’s on, and have him put a media jammer on before you give any details. Let’s keep the details quiet as long as possible.”
Peabody had to swallow hard twice before she was sure her lunch would stay down. “Yes, sir.”
“Get Strobie and secure him before he can babble about this.”
When Eve turned, Peabody saw a shadow of pity in her eyes, then it was gone and they were flat and cool again. “Let’s get moving. I want to fry this son of a bitch.”
It was nearly midnight before Eve dragged herself up the stairs to her own front door. Her stomach was raw, her eyes burning, her head roaring. The stench of vicious death clung to her though she’d scrubbed off a layer of skin in the locker room showers before heading home.
What she wanted most was oblivion, and she said one desperate and sincere prayer that she wouldn’t see the wreckage of Thomas Brennen when she closed her eyes to sleep.
The door opened before she could reach it. Summerset stood with the glittery light of the foyer chandelier behind him, his tall bony body all but quivering with dislike.
“You are unpardonably late, Lieutenant. Your guests are preparing to leave.”
Guests? Her overtaxed mind struggled with the word before she remembered. A dinner party? She was supposed to care about a dinner party after the night she’d put in?
“Kiss my ass,” she invited and started passed him.
His thin fingers caught at her arm. “As Roarke’s wife you’re expected to perform certain social duties, such as assisting him in hosting an important affair such as this evening’s dinner.”
Fury outdistanced fatigue in a heartbeat. Her hand curled into a fist at her side. “Step back before I—”
“Eve darling.”
Roarke’s voice, managing to convey welcome, amusement, and caution in two words, stopped her curled fist from lifting and following through. Scowling, she turned, saw him just outside the parlor doorway. It wasn’t the formal black that made him breathtaking. Eve knew he had a leanly muscled body that could stop a woman’s heart no matter what he wore—or didn’t wear. His hair flowed, dark as night and nearly to his shoulders, to frame a face she often thought belonged on a Renaissance painting. Sharp bones, eyes bluer than prized cobalt, a mouth fashioned to spout poetry, issue orders, and drive a woman to madness.
In less than a year, he had broken through her defenses, unlocked her heart, and most surprising of all, had gained not only her love but her trust.
And he could still annoy her.
She considered him the first and only miracle in her life.
“I’m late. Sorry.” It was more of a challenge than an apology, delivered like a bullet. He acknowledged it with an easy smile and a lifted eyebrow.
“I’m sure it was unavoidable.” He held out a hand. When she crossed the foyer and took it, he found hers stiff and cold. In her aged-whiskey eyes he saw both fury and fatigue. He’d grown used to seeing both there. She was pale, which worried him. He recognized the smears on her jeans as dried blood, and hoped it wasn’t her own.
He gave her hand a quick, intimate squeeze before bringing it to his lips, his eyes steady on hers. “You’re tired, Lieutenant,” he murmured, the wisp of Ireland magical in his voice. “I’m just moving them along. Only a few minutes more, all right?”
“Sure, yeah. Fine.” Her temper began to cool. “I’m sorry I screwed this up. I know it was important.” Beyond him in the beautifully furnished parlor she saw more than a dozen elegant men and women, formally dressed, gems winking, silks rustling. Something of her reluctance must have shown on her face before she smoothed it away, because he laughed.
“Five minutes, Eve. I doubt this can be as bad as whatever you faced tonight.”
He ushered her in, a man as comfortable with wealth and privilege as with the stench of alleys and violence. Seamlessly he introduced his wife to those she’d yet to meet, cued her on the names of those she’d socialized with at another time, all the while nudging the dinner party guests toward the door.
Eve smelled rich perfumes and wine, the fragrant smoke from the applewood logs simmering discreetly in the fireplace. But under it all the sensory memory stink of blood and gore remained.
He wondered if she knew how staggering she was, standing there amid the glitter in her scarred jacket and smeared denim, her short, untidy hair haloing a pale face, accenting dark, tired eyes, her long, rangy body held straight through what he knew was an act of sheer will.
She was, he thought, courage in human form.
But when they closed the door on the last guest, she
shook her head. “Summerset’s right. I’m just not equipped for this Roarke’s wife stuff.”
“You are my wife.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m any good at it. I let you down. I should’ve—” She stopped talking because his mouth was on hers, and it was warm, possessive, and untied the knots in the back of her neck. Without realizing she’d moved, Eve wrapped her arms around his waist and just held on.
“There,” he murmured. “That’s better. This is my business.” He lifted her chin, skimming a finger in the slight dent centered in it. “My job. You have yours.”
“It was a big deal though. Some whatzit merger.”
“Scottoline merger—more of a buyout, really, and it should be finalized by the middle of next week. Even without your delightful presence at the dinner table. Still, you might have called. I worried.”
“I forgot. I can’t always remember. I’m not used to this.” She jammed her hands in her pockets and paced down the wide hall and back. “I’m not used to this. Every time I think I am, I’m not. Then I come walking in here with all the megarich, looking like a street junkie.”
“On the contrary, you look like a cop. I believe several of our guests were quite impressed with the glimpse of your weapon under your jacket, and the trace of blood on your jeans. It’s not yours, I take it.”
“No.” Suddenly she just couldn’t stand up any longer. She turned to the steps, climbed two and sat. Because it was Roarke, she allowed herself to cover her face with her hands.
He sat beside her, draped an arm over her shoulders. “It was bad.”
“Almost always you can say you’ve seen as bad, even worse. It’s most always true. I can’t say that this time.” Her stomach still clenched and rolled. “I’ve never seen worse.”
He knew what she lived with, had seen a great deal of it himself. “Do you want to tell me?”
“No, Christ no, I don’t want to think about it for a few hours. I don’t want to think about anything.”
“I can help you there.”
For the first time in hours she smiled. “I bet you can.”